If ownership didn’t approve of the parameters would be an obvious reason.

But if the GM had a workable deal I can't see what parameters wouldn't be acceptable. The Leafs are the last team to care about spending money and they cannot spend over the cap so there's a built in limit to whatever the supposed deal was. I'm not buying this.

Paul Marner wants to be Asst GM and has a say in all player decisions...lol

Yeah pretty much. Dubas: "uh Shanny we have a workable 6 year deal with Mitch but we also have to give Paul the presidents role are you ok with stepping down?"

I wonder if this entire Marner situation is just the tip of the iceberg going forward for teams, cap issues and young players coming off ELC. I can see more and more teams facing this similar situation going forward so having a great cap-team together is key. I know many Leafs fans are upset that the Leafs are the team going through this, but maybe the Leafs are blazing the trail here on how things will be done in the future. Lessons learned might benefit this management team that other teams might not have learned yet. I guess we'll see, but I'm hopeful they can resolve Marner by Oct and keep this core together for relative long term.

I don’t think there’s any upside to this relative to signing them all to McKinnon/Pastrnak contracts.

But I think the point is that Mackinnon/Pastrnak contracts may just not exist anymore except for in extremely odd cases. Like, Rantanen may be the best comp out there for Pastrnak both in terms of raw numbers and questions about how much of his scoring is him and how much is his situation and I don't think any of us expect Rantanen to sign a 6 year/7.25 AAV deal which is roughly the Pastrnak equivalent. Like I was saying in another thread, those contracts look so bad right now for the players that other agents are probably advising their guys to sign 5 year deals just to avoid those situations.

Like, honestly, the only way I see another contract like that being signed is in a case of someone like Hischier or Patrick or a top prospect that hasn't really wowed in the NHL. So I think the "upside" you're looking for in Matthews not signing a Mackinnon type of contract is that Matthews was unquestionably better than Mackinnon was in his first three years. You can say with hindsight that the Leafs may be better off if Matthews wasn't very good these last few years so he'd sign on the cheap and then get good but I don't think any of us would actually be happier with the Leafs in that situation.

Im glad Matthews, Marner and Nylander are great. It would be better for the leafs if they signed for less. Some guys over the past few years have (Stamkos, Kucherov, McDavid, others I mentioned). Nylander was pretty straight market value. Matthews, given the term, was essentially as high as possible. Marner we will see. Oh well. Nothing can be done about it.

Im glad Matthews, Marner and Nylander are great. It would be better for the leafs if they signed for less. Some guys over the past few years have (Stamkos, Kucherov, McDavid, others I mentioned).

But that's my point. Mackinnon and Pastrnak didn't "sign for less". They signed deals that matched up pretty well with what they'd actually done at the time. That they outstripped that production later doesn't change that and the only realistic way for any of the guys the Leafs have to have signed for less is for them to be less good than they are.

I'm not going to get into the Tampa thing but McDavid is another example of why some of those deals are no longer going to be seen as good for players. Leave alone the money McDavid might have left on the table, do you think he's happy that he's not going to have any say in where he plays for the next 7 years?

And I kind of reject the notion that Matthews didn't "sign for less" in the way that McDavid did. Do you really think that if Matthews had wanted 12 million instead of 11.634 that the Leafs would have balked? Or that they wouldn't have matched a 5 year/60 or 62.5 million offer sheet for him?

Im glad Matthews, Marner and Nylander are great. It would be better for the leafs if they signed for less. Some guys over the past few years have (Stamkos, Kucherov, McDavid, others I mentioned).

But that's my point. Mackinnon and Pastrnak didn't "sign for less". They signed deals that matched up pretty well with what they'd actually done at the time. That they outstripped that production later doesn't change that and the only realistic way for any of the guys the Leafs have to have signed for less is for them to be less good than they are.

I'm not going to get into the Tampa thing but McDavid is another example of why some of those deals are no longer going to be seen as good for players. Leave alone the money McDavid might have left on the table, do you think he's happy that he's not going to have any say in where he plays for the next 7 years?

And I kind of reject the notion that Matthews didn't "sign for less" in the way that McDavid did. Do you really think that if Matthews had wanted 12 million instead of 11.634 that the Leafs would have balked? Or that they wouldn't have matched a 5 year/60 or 62.5 million offer sheet for him?

I dont care whether the deals are good for leaf players — really, it’s the opposite. I hope they are “terrible” for a given individual and help the leafs acquire more talent, increasing their chance to win (and of course that simultaneously the players are happy and want to stay and give great discounts on future deals).

On McDavid, yes, I think he gave more of a discount than Matthews. That’s still true if Matthews could have squeezed more.

In the Matthews extension thread, you suggested the following contracts:

Quote

8 years, 92 million

5 years, 45 million

7 years, 73.5 million

Those deals would have given us a substantial savings — 5 years at 9/year would make a huge difference. You werent trying to lowball the situation, I dont think. You were giving your best guess. Im just saying that it would have been nice if those deals had wound up happening. They didnt. The leafs paid much more.

Talking with @DhaliwalSports today, a source told him the Leafs and Marner weâ€™re close to a deal 2 weeks ago but Brendan Shanahan didnâ€™t approve it. Lots of rumours circling around RFAâ€™s these days

I dont care whether the deals are good for leaf players — really, it’s the opposite. I hope they are “terrible” for a given individual and help the leafs acquire more talent, increasing their chance to win (and of course that simultaneously the players are happy and want to stay and give great discounts on future deals).

I mean, you should probably care about those things if you're trying to accurately read the market or pick up on trends. And, I mean, ideally you wouldn't be so laser-focused on the Leafs winning that you'd want guys to be underpaid relative to what they're worth but that's another discussion.

In the Matthews extension thread, you suggested the following contracts:

What I also said in that thread a post or two down was that Matthews may feel like he wasn't in the best negotiating position and that if he came back with a stronger year he'd be able to throw his weight around even more. He did and, well, he did.

That said, I was off with how I read the market to be shaping up. If you only point here was "The guys on the Maple Leafs signed with X, I would like it if they signed for less than X" then so be it but I thought, in the context of bringing up the Pastrnak/Mackinnon deals, it was helpful to go into why Matthews/Nylander signed for what they did and why a reading of the market that was more informed by the McDavid and Eichel deals ended up being wrong. I don't think either Nylander and Matthews signed for some sort of number that was outrageous given what they've done(or represented the very upper limit of what they could have gotten) but I do think their deals were informed by looking at deals like Mackinnon and Pastrnak and wanting to avoid those same mistakes.

You know I think it's kinda messed up that the media is taking Marner's CHARITY golf tournament as an opportunity to ask him questions about his contract negotiations when he's obviously just going to give canned answers like "I want to be a Leaf and hopefully my agent works things out" (which is literally exactly what he ended up saying obviously). I wasn't going to say anything at first, but now I've found out that they asked Michael Dal Colle what his thoughts on the Marner situation is. MICHAEL DAL COLLE! Like come on, just focus on the charity for one day people.

Michael Dal Colle on Lehner: "An awesome person. What he went through, it was amazing for me, as a young guy, learning from a guy like that"

Isles winger talks changes in NY + what Marner's like off the ice & how Mitch's dealing with contract chatter đź‘‡https://t.co/03e4xFBnz0

If you only point here was "The guys on the Maple Leafs signed with X, I would like it if they signed for less than X" then so be it ...

That’s really all it was. There were other guys that, relatively speaking, who signed for less. (McDavid is a good example because everyone agrees he is the way better player and the rumors were that Matthews on an 8-year deal would have been significantly more than McDavid.). So Matthews deal, while not “unreasonable,” still skews neutral or high rather than skews low — many (all?) smart commentators (not just you) expected a lower dollar amount given the term so it’s easy for me to imagine a world in which his price comes in lower, even at the time he signed it. But if he had signed a cheaper deal after 2 years instead of waiting for 3 then that too would be a preferable alternate universe.

(McDavid is a good example because everyone agrees he is the way better player and the rumors were that Matthews on an 8-year deal would have been significantly more than McDavid.)

McDavid is also a good example of what I'm saying. His deal would be exhibit A for any competent agent in trying to convince a top young player not to sign a deal like it. Not only did he leave money on the table but what's gone on in Edmonton since not only shows that leaving money on the table in no way guarantees that the team uses it to actually make the team more competitive but just the general bad idea of tying yourself to a team with no recourse for 8 years.

You know I think it's kinda messed up that the media is taking Marner's CHARITY golf tournament as an opportunity to ask him questions about his contract negotiations when he's obviously just going to give canned answers like "I want to be a Leaf and hopefully my agent works things out" (which is literally exactly what he ended up saying obviously). I wasn't going to say anything at first, but now I've found out that they asked Michael Dal Colle what his thoughts on the Marner situation is. MICHAEL DAL COLLE! Like come on, just focus on the charity for one day people.

Michael Dal Colle on Lehner: "An awesome person. What he went through, it was amazing for me, as a young guy, learning from a guy like that"

Isles winger talks changes in NY + what Marner's like off the ice & how Mitch's dealing with contract chatter đź‘‡https://t.co/03e4xFBnz0

I mean the only reason the event is even on and being covered by media is the fact that Marner is a hockey player for the Leafs. If it were Mitch Smith putting on this event you wouldn't even know about it.

Dennis Bernstein on TSN690 says he thinks the Marner negotiations are going to progress further now because Shanahan stepped in and took a more active role recently. Neither side wants to miss regular season games, thinks he'll be in for game 1.

Dennis Bernstein on TSN690 says he thinks the Marner negotiations are going to progress further now because Shanahan stepped in and took a more active role recently. Neither side wants to miss regular season games, thinks he'll be in for game 1.

Say what you want but before I leave on my vacation, I need to say this. I think all the players today are greedy, I think Marner should take at most 6.5 for 7-8 yrs up front like the usual, then in his next deal he goes after the bigger money. This way all the players can be signed to a fair deal leaving the team to build a contender for years to come. So say at the end of the day when the deal is signed Mitch has 40 mil to toss in the bank, what the heck is wrong with that. invest well and he is set for life plus he would still have a better payday in 7-8 years. and some very nice rings i am sure of.

But we all know shit does not work that way anymore. so I will still hope for 8.5 and a cheap one year deal to grab Gardner, then I would say we will be "thee team" to beat for the cup.